"At The Contemporary Austin, artist Raul De Lara is asking a deceptively simple question: why can plants be considered native to multiple nations, but people cannot? This provocative idea forms the foundation of HOST, his latest large-scale exhibition, which transforms the gallery into a surreal environment where borders, identity, and the meaning of home are put under a sculptural microscope."
"The works in HOST merge botanical imagery with everyday objects, creating forms that feel both familiar and unsettling. De Lara uses wood sourced from Texas and Mexico, reinforcing the cross-border dialogue at the heart of the exhibition. Potted monsteras sprout from heavy chains, their leaves twisting toward the sky in defiance of constraint. A school desk bristles with long spines, a physical manifestation of the tension between education and discipline."
"One of the most striking pieces is a cactus disguised as a child's rocking horse, a sculpture that challenges notions of play and safety while blurring the line between domestic object and natural form. Even seemingly mundane tools, like a shovel or a cluster of daisies, are transformed into something uncanny - an invitation to see the everyday world through a stranger, more questioning lens."
HOST transforms a gallery into a surreal environment where borders, identity, and the meaning of home are examined through large-scale sculptures. Botanical imagery and everyday objects are merged, producing uncanny yet playful forms that unsettle familiarity. De Lara sources wood from Texas and Mexico to reinforce cross-border dialogue. Many pieces render functional items unusable—spiked ladders, chained potted plants, a spined school desk—forcing interpretation as carriers of meaning rather than tools. A cactus disguised as a child's rocking horse blurs domestic safety and natural form. De Lara’s biography and woodworking background inform material choices and themes of migration, memory, and belonging.
Read at stupidDOPE | Est. 2008
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